


you are the poison i need

by orphan_account



Category: Batman (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic, Hurt/Comfort, If You Squint - Freeform, M/M, the vaguest tags possible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 12:57:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6611464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roy has feelings. He's worried about whether or not Jason reciprocates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you are the poison i need

**Author's Note:**

> Title from help by the front bottoms. written for anon prompt "jayroy angst" on tumblr. kinda happy because i love things that are simultaneously happy and sad. also wanted to write some roy emotions bc i love this poor child.

Roy wasn’t a stranger to an ache. In his chest, bones, heart. The present ache in his whole body, therefore, wasn’t odd. That didn’t make it hurt any less. 

It was different, he guessed. The longing, he was familiar with that, the need in his bones. The jitters, shaking, trembling limbs, DTs and cups of black sludgy coffee shattered on the floor because his hands shook too much to raise it to his lips. He remembers slicing his foot on a pewter sharp, the crimson blood pooling, staining the white linoleum as he crumpled to the floor. The present ache was something more central. The torso, not the limbs. The heart, not the head. 

Roy had never really been clean. Sure, he hadn’t used anything, hadn’t let liquor or even weak beer pass his lips in months, bordering on years, but- Even before. Before the drugs, before the haze of tunnel-vision they produced. He had always been addicted, always on the cusp of not-okay, ready to be pushed over the edge by the revocation of whatever he needed to quench his thirst. For a while, it had been Ollie’s love, or adrenaline, or the feeling of doing something good, but later it was something more tangible and destructive. He had always been an addict. 

But at least they had a rehab for the drugs and alcohol addiction.

He pondered this as he sat up in bed, the analog clock- Jason didn’t like digital, and no wonder- reading just a little past five in the morning. Two hours of sleep, then. More than he usually got.

His body was sore, his eyelids heavy. It would be so easy to sink back into the cocoon of sleep. The blankets wrap around him, encasing him like a warm embrace. It would be so easy to lay back down... Instead, he sits up. 

The cold air hits his bare skin, making him shiver. The warehouse is a bit drafty, but he’s not usually this cold. Jason is, though. He never complains, never says anything about it, but his skin is like ice. 

Roy remembers tracing his hands over Jay’s shoulders last night- no, a few hours ago- and thinking he’d get frostbite, thinking his fingers would freeze off. He looked over at the man beside him. Jason was still asleep. He rarely did. Roy thought it was because nightmares plagued Jason, probably worse than his own, no- definitely. But no, the man slept like the dead. Immediately Roy felt bad for the euphemism passing through his mind, but then he chuckled lightly. Jason lie there, blankets rucked down around his waist, exposing his tan skin. His hair looks perfect, even as Roy’s messy bun, hastily done a few hours ago, comes down around his shoulders in tendrils.

Roy supposes Jason would something akin to a model if it weren’t for the ghastly scars marking every available section of skin. Little round red burns on his arms and shoulders where those he both trusted and misliked put out cigarettes on him, an inhuman amount of knife wounds, freshly-healed gashes along his legs, bullet wounds on his shoulders, lower back, abdomen. 

Roy remembers how Jason looked the night before, peeling his shirt over his head. He had been turned away from Roy,  face mostly obscured, but Roy had caught a glimpse of worry, fleeting. Turning around, it was back to that cocky grin, a self-assured smirk, a glare, maybe… If that was a facade, it was a good one. Roy thought it probably wasn’t. He had seen that moment of vulnerability. It wasn’t meant for him to see, though. Wasn’t directed at him. Of course not. Either Jason didn’t care what Roy thought of him- God, no, please not that, a gnawing feeling told Roy- or, more likely, he was just so sure of what they were. Whatever they were. Come to think of it, Roy wasn’t sure which was worse. 

He pushed the blankets off, and though he was on the inside of the bed, close to the wall, he swung out without awaking Jason. He doesn’t know why, just as the sudden urge to get out of the room. His heart pounds in his chest, his hands shake, and he can feel his cheeks growing as red as his hair, his swollen lips, even though he’s still chilly. He feels, somehow, like he’s on fire. 

Roy pads to the kitchen, being careful to avoid the patches of the floor that are known to creak, so Jason doesn’t wake up. Roy isn’t sure if that decision is for his own benefit or Jason’s, but he can hide his fear, or selfishness, or whatever behind a mask of altruism. Hell, that’s what built the Justice League, right?

In the kitchen, Roy begins making coffee. His mind is buzzing, body now thrumming with energy, quite fully awake. The coffee, though, is a task that requires thought, but shallow thought, something to divert his attention away from the jumbled mess ringing in his head, trying to untangle itself. 

He fills the pot, measures the grounds. Thinks briefly that he should have grabbed a sweatshirt; his thin grey sweats ride low on his hip bones, and the cold tile does his bare feet no favors. The smell of coffee always reminded him of home, even when he really had none, had no place. 

Maybe he still doesn’t. Maybe he never did, never will. It doesn’t matter. 

Drip. Drip. Drip. 

The aroma floods the room, awakening Roy’s senses. He has a tendency to attach himself to things, to people. Clingy. 

Wraps his hands around the mug. Chipped, white, stained, advertising some long-forgotten business on the side in faded purple script. 

It’s a few moments until there’s enough to merit pouring into the cup. Roy has a habit of pilfering the liquid from the pot and replacing it before it’s completely brewed, replacing it before too much drips on the pad below. It’s one of the more minimal of his bad habits.

He’d put cream in it, but for some reason doesn't bother. He’s flexible with how he takes his coffee. He sits at the table, staring at the wall. There are water stains on it, the paint peeling. It’s like a canvas, habit and nature the artist, time the medium, telling its own story.

He’s swimming in his thoughts, doesn’t hear Jason come in. He starts preparing his coffee wordlessly. A few minutes pass in silence. Not quite comfortable, but too distracted to be uncomfortable either. It exists, like them, somewhere in a limbo state. 

“You didn’t stay.” He speaks in a monotone, and Roy can’t quite decipher whether he’s insinuating hurt or not. He never was good at reading people.

He sips his coffee- Roy knows he takes it with sugar, but never cream- and makes eye contact with Roy. 

“Didn’t know you wanted me too,” he replies simply, and Jason, for once, pulls out the rickety old chair, splattered with paint, blood, and oil, and sits down. 

“I did.” 

Roy smiles, and for once it’s not a facade. Jason smiles, the lopsided one without teeth, crinkling a bit in the eyes- and takes off his black hoodie. He’s wearing Roy’s shirt underneath, which had been discarded on the floor the night before and is a little small on him. Jason must’ve put on whatever was near before trotting out to the kitchen. He balls up the hoodie, throwing it across the table at Roy, who catches it, surprised. 

He pulls the soft fabric over his head, pushes his hair out of his face, briefly wondering where his hair elastic went. He thinks this might be home. Maybe he’s never had one. Maybe he’s had too many, all worn out  after a while. But this, he’s determined to keep. He burrows into the sweatshirt, which smells like Jason’s cologne. 

  
This, he was okay with clinging to. 

**Author's Note:**

> im on tumblr @hoevarr! come talk to me about comics or whatever or just come cry idc


End file.
